Neighbourhood Plan
Please note all updates on the Neighbourhood Plan are now within our Minutes which can be found here.
*March 2024 update*
The Highclere Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group (SG), after submitting all proposed sites to independent sustainability assessment and an assessment against the HNP Objectives, entered a Parish-wide consultation in Spring 2023 on those sites which could meet both our expected future Housing Requirement (HR) of ten dwellings in full as well as being capable of contributing to our objectives of providing smaller and more affordable homes.
As a result the Foxs Lane site in Penwood was chosen for allocation in the Neighbourhood Plan.
However, the publication of the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (BDBC) Local Plan Update (LPU) in January 2024 left it unclear whether the chosen site was, in fact, acceptable within BDBC’s Spatial Strategy.
Despite the National Planning Policy Framework guidance that Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) should assign Housing Requirements to Neighbourhood Areas (NAs), BDBC have decided to base their Spatial Strategy in the latest LPU on individual “settlements” alone and in the LPU have assigned an HR of ten dwellings to the settlement of Highclere Village. Subsequent communications have made it clear that our proposed site allocation in Foxs Lane would not count for our HR and that this judgment also applies to the Oakley Farm site. Equally none of the five sites proposed to us in our Call for Sites exercise, but not presented in the Preference Survey, satisfied the latest LPU criteria either.
Fortunately, the data from the Preference Survey does give us the justification to allocate “the best of the rest” and we judge that re-running the Preference Survey would not be useful or expedient. The replacement site for allocation in the NP will therefore be Cleremeadows, which satisfies the latest LPU criteria.
As ever, the allocation of a site in a Neighbourhood Plan confers no special treatment on any planning application made on that site, which must still be subject to all the normal Planning policies and processes.
*September 2021 Update*
COMMUNITY SURVEY- DEADLINE FRIDAY 1ST OCTOBER
In early September, a Community Survey document will be distributed to every house in the Parish to gain your views on work done by the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group (NPSG). This is an important exercise to gain your feedback as a basis for future work, and we are keen to get as much Parish participation as possible.
You may remember that on February 15th 2020 an Open Day was held to introduce Highclere to the meaning and benefits of a Neighbourhood Plan (NP). It was meant to be a precursor to a continuing dialogue about the future of Planning in Highclere between the community and the NPSG. A draft Vision was presented along with some possible supporting Objectives and a very large volume of opinion was collected from residents who attended from across the Parish.
Unfortunately, soon after almost all the planned follow-on engagements fell foul of the Covid-19 pandemic and had to be postponed indefinitely. The NPSG has, however, been able to continue some work despite the constraints, and have used the extensive feedback from the Open Day to align the draft Vision more closely with the views expressed then. We have also, on the same basis, developed the Objectives further and they are the subject of the forthcoming Community Survey and seek your approval of them. The response from the Parish will define the future direction of the NP.
How to respond
We are asking every occupant of your household who is 8 years old and over to complete the Survey because the Plan covers a period when even the youngest respondent will become adult. So make sure you complete your age group and location as this helps us to analyse the survey data effectively.
You are free to make more paper copies for the rest of the household if that is what you choose. If you prefer to complete the survey online the link to the Survey Monkey version is https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HighclereNP Whichever method you choose, please complete and return the Survey by Friday October 1st. Drop-off locations for paper surveys await you at the Red House, Penwood Stores and the Village Hall.
Please watch for more news and detail online at Nextdoor, in the Highclere Society newsletter, in the Parish mag and here on the Parish Council website. Please direct any suggestions for more community communication paths, and further questions about the Survey or the Neighbourhood Plan to Colin Wall at [email protected]
On 15th February 2020, the NP Steering Group Organised an Information Day. Attached below is the article sent to the Newbury Weekly News, as well as a copy of the slides and the feedback.